Activity 4: Nutrition Diagnosis

Think about the following questions and type your answers below.

List the three categories of nutrition problems found in the eNCPT manual.

 Intake
 Clinical
 Behavioural/ Environmental

You are seeing an elderly adult male in the hospital due to unintentional weight loss on the
nursing screening. He reports weight loss of about 5% in the past 2 months. He recently
lost his wife and states he has been feeling lonely and down. He also reports that his wife
did all the cooking, and he is struggling with meal preparation. Write your BEST
nutrition diagnosis statement (PES statement) for this patient.

Problem:

 Unintended weight loss

 Inadequate oral intake
 Inadequate energy intake

Etiology:

 Feeling down/lonely
 Lack of knowledge/skills in preparing food

Signs and Symptoms:

 5% weight loss in past 2 month

PES statement- Unintended weight loss related to lack of skill in preparing food as evidenced
by 5% weight loss in past 2 month.

My Intervention- Educating him on how to prepare food, referring him to some cooking class,
educating him on how to buy nutritious frozen food which he can do in an easy way.

You are seeing a middle-aged woman for weight loss counseling who is class 2 obese. She
reports eating just 2 small meals daily but “can’t lose weight”. She drinks one twenty-
ounce Sprite daily but otherwise says she avoids sweets. She does not exercise. Her thyroid
function levels are normal. You assign a nutrition problem of “Obesity class 2”. What is the
BEST etiology to go with this problem for this client? (bold and highlight the answer you
think is the best one)

1. Excessive energy intake

2. Altered metabolism
3. Decreased energy needs
4. Physical inactivity
5. Not ready for lifestyle change

Defend your answer (briefly):

 She said she does not exercise.

You are seeing a hospitalized patient with an admitting diagnosis of “exacerbation of

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease”. He is 80 years old, and has a BMI of 17.8. His Alb
is normal, and his CRP is 2.5. He reports a usual weight of 180 pounds, but a current
weight of 155 pounds. He has lost this weight over a period of the past 1 ½ years. You note
moderate to severe wasting of his temporalis muscle and squaring of this shoulders. Write
you best nutrition diagnosis (PES) statement. (See HINT above.)

 Problem:

Malnutrition (Chronic disease related)

Underweight
Unintended weight loss

 Etiology:

Weight loss from 180 to 155 pounds, suffered from exacerbation of chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease

 Signs and symptoms:

CRP is 2.5
Wasting of temporalis muscle and squaring of his shoulders.

PES statement- Chronic disease related malnutrition evidenced by BMI of 17.8 and CRP 2.5
with wasting temporalis muscle and squaring of his shoulder.

Missing your etiology. Even though when diagnosing malnutrition, the etiology is sort of
built into the problem, you are still supposed to include the "related to" portion of the
problem even though it is redundant: Chronic disease related malnutrition related to
increased needs of COPD as evidenced by